GST portal is not all about GST payment alone. Its also about managing taxes and returns. The first thing you see on the GST portal is the home page, where there are different useful links and tabs. An update section gives you all the fresh updates, whether it is about the GST council meeting or it is all about CGST act.
With different features included in the GST portal, the account maintenance is made easy. There are features of E-ledgers, Services, and various payment options that create a very fluid tax payment experience.
Ease of account maintenance
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Before the implementation of GST, there was a need to maintain a separate account of tax liabilities. With the integration of technology in GST, there is a feature of Electronic Ledgers. E-Ledgers are statements of input tax credit and cash for each registered taxpayer. In addition to this, every taxpayer will also have an E- Tax liability register.
Once an individual is registered on the GST portal, two electronics ledgers are created automatically, Input Tax Credit and Cash ledger, and an E-tax liability register. These can be accessed anytime from the Dashboard of the GST portal. A taxpayer will be able to view all the records of Tax liability register, Cash ledger, and ITC ledger under a single GST portal. This eliminates the need to maintain separate accounts for each.
Tax Liability Register
A Tax Liability Register reflects the total tax liability of a registered individual for a particular month.
Credit and Cash ledger
This is an organized system for the collection of tax and other related payments with taxes. In this system, payments can be made through Credit ledger or through Cash ledger.
- Credit ledger: Suppliers can use the Input Tax Credit to make GST payments. Here the ITC or Input Tax Credit can only be used for GST payments and not for payment of interest on late payments, penalties or late fees, etc.
- Cash Ledger: The challan can only be generated on the GST portal for payments online or offline.
An account of every credit or debit made to the ledger.
In the GST portal, a unique identification number is generated for every debit or credit to the credit or cash ledger. This can be indicated in the corresponding entry in the electronic liability register. As this is automatically generated, there will not be any need to maintain a separate account for every debit or credit made to the ledger.
Types of payments
Any registered business or individual needs to pay GST, and this can be done through the GST portal. GST portal is an intuitive interface that is efficient and secure for making payments online. There are different tax payments and returns that are needed, depending on the liability of a registered taxpayer. For businesses, there are majorly three types of GST payments. CGST, SGST, and IGST.
- CGST is a tax levied for any supply of goods or services within a particular state, and the collection of taxes under CGST goes to the central government.
- SGST is levied on any supply of services or goods within a state, and the tax collection goes to state government.
- IGST is applied to any inter-state supply of Goods and services, and it has some components of both CGST and IGST.
There are a few other taxes or payments that are required from a taxpayer, depending on the taxes applicable. Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) and Tax Collected at Source (TCS) is required to be paid to the government for a specified category of registered individuals.
In addition to this, payments such as Penalty, Fees, Interest if applicable, etc. are also required to be paid to the government depending on case to case basis.
Ease of payments through GST
The payment system of the GST portal is built with cutting edge technology, and the way there are different features that are added to the payment system makes it easy for any taxpayer to make payments online. NEFT/RTGS, Debit/Credit cards, and net banking could be used to make payments. With the feature to create ledgers and pay online, it has created a great convenience.
It is a paperless transaction that helps in recording payments online. There is the convenience of electronically generated challan through the GST portal for all modes of payments, which cancels the need for a manually prepared challan. The robust system is quick, and accounting and reporting happen in real-time.
Online payment through GST
Payment through the GST portal is as easy as making any other payment online. To generate a challan and make a payment, log in to GST portal with your registered username and password. Hover over the “Services” tab and select payments, under the “payments” tab click on the “Create Challan” link. Enter the amount that you are required to pay and select the payment method you want to use from Debit/Credit card, NEFT/RTGS, or Internet banking.
Enter all the details required and click the “Generate Challan” link. A new page with all the details of the challan will be displayed. Click on the payment mode and click the “Make Payment” link. Once the payment is through, you will receive a challan with all payment details. This summary will be sent to your Cash-Ledger account.
Timelimit for tax payments
A normal taxpayer should pay GST monthly by the 20th of the succeeding month. Example. GST payment for January should be paid before the 20th of February.
For Composition taxpayers, they need to pay GST quarterly. Cash payments are first deposited in Cash ledger, and the taxpayer should debit the ledger when making payment in monthly returns and reflect the applicable debit entry number in their tax return.
Conclusion
The GST portal has not only created payment of taxes seamless, but it also used high-end technology to make every transaction secure. There are dedicated sections in the GST portal for every that. All about GST payment can be accessed under the payments tab of the portal.
In the update section, you can know all about CGST act or the new changes that are going to be implemented. With this kind of efficient system, it becomes easy to remain tax compliant.